Name game

Sometimes Greg will say something like "I spoke to Jen today," which to my mind is equivalent to saying "I spoke to a girl today" - we know several Jens, Jennifers and Jennys. A sentence like that needs to be followed with a last name, association, location or long convoluted story. Like, remember the one who was mean and dated our friend at the Red Lobster, not to be confused with the Medford Jen with the 'pher' we both adore so. It cuts down on the confusion. We need a flow chart.

Not that I should talk. I attended a baby shower for my friend Lisa Nicholson last weekend. I typically write my full name on my name tag to distinguish myself from the legion of Lisas I am bound to meet at any social function. Otherwise I end up as LisaM, some derivative of Liam+Neeson that I can't answer to. (I noticed two others from TeamLisa at the luncheon). Later that night, I met one of two Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jams that are on Greg's team at Symantec. Oh, and don't forget the time a customer a Blockbuster yelled at me because he was angry that both video stores in town had managers named Lisa. I needed 'to do something about that'. I guess it was too confusing for him.

(Apparently 'Lisa' reigned supreme from 1962-1970, when 'Jennifer' had her way with us and stole our pretty tiara. All she had to do was ask; we have gladly given up the title.)

That's why Greg and I gave our kids crazy unique names, so they'll be so original.

*What's that you say? What is that sound? Oh, what you're hearing is the sound of gleeful mothers prancing up and down the streets, rejoicing as the buses roll up and take their little angels off to school. For one day. Which is good. The snow days have added up and the only thing I seem to know for sure is my name, which might be a lucky guess.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Lisa? Who's Lisa? Or, who is Tara for that matter? Indeed, you are Lisa to Lisa and I, Tara to Tara however, these names carry little importance anymore except when you're paying bills. They are secondary.

My name is Mom. Or, Zach & Trev's Mom. My husband occassionaly calls me honey. Many times, I have thought about abandoning this acquired name but I always wanted to feel like a queen so, I hang my tiara with the name which truly reigns supreme.

In fact, I'd love to see how many of my friends screen their calls. What if their caller ID showed "Mom" and then my phone number. Would they answer because they see my number (not to mention that they all know I go by mom now, not Tara) or would they choose to let the machine get it simply because they see Mom and fail to look at the phone number?

And another thing Tara, or terra, supposedly means Earth. Does this mean I'm earthly? I'm as round as the Earth? I am the color of the soil of the Earth? What the heck? Now I'm disturbed.

I'll stick with Mom.
As someone named "Jennifer," I can tell you that it was a pretty wild name to have growing up. No one really ever picked on us, because Jennifer doesn't rhyme with anything (thankfully) and there were always so many of us that we could have taken out any poor soul who dared to make a joke. :)

I ran across a cool site tonight that is appropriate for this conversation. http://howmanyofme.com allows you to look up names and see how many people in the US share the name.
There are over 1 million Lisas and nearly 1.4 million Jennifers! Greg is lucky. There are only 155,000 fellow Gregs!

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